PARIS – Barbara Swan Frost was “absolutely flabbergasted” when she learned she would be the honored guest at the annual Maine Quilt Show in Augusta.

Sponsored by a statewide quilting organization, the Pine Tree Quilters Guild, the show is one of the largest of its kind in the New England region, Frost said Friday.

The hardest part, she said, was not being able to tell anyone.

Frost was notified of the honor after a September 2003 board meeting of the quilting guild – and then told she couldn’t share the news. The show did not begin until July 31, 2004.

On Friday, Frost was still unwinding from the commotion of this show, which had been held the previous weekend, as she settled into a couch in her Paris Hill home. She traveled back and forth to Augusta for three days during the show. As the guest of honor, she was given a special booth, where she displayed 13 of her quilts.

“I didn’t put anything into the show,” Frost said, meaning that she didn’t compete for any of the quilting prizes. “I don’t think I’m very competitive – I’m more volunteerism.”

Frost’s love of quilting is intertwined with the 28 years she spent as a teacher in Maine and Connecticut. She derives obvious pleasure from talking about different quilting patterns and techniques. She enjoys sharing this knowledge, be it through a quilting workshop or an event like the quilt show.

Each year, she teaches quilting to young students at Hebron Station School.

She stumbled onto quilting after retiring in the early 1980s. Incorporating her love of history, her first work depicted a series of early schoolhouses from her hometown of Paris.

Today, Frost is working on a quilt celebrating Oxford County’s pending bicentennial. It comprises 40 squares, representing towns and townships in the county.

The chairwoman of the Pine Needles Quilting Group, and a Paris-Norway chapter of The Pine Tree guild, Frost also is the Western Maine representative to the larger organization. She quilts every week, she said.

Frost doesn’t know how many quilts she has completed since she started more than 20 years ago, but she has never sold a single one. Instead, she gives them to friends, family or charity.

“You can’t put a price on it. If you make it by hand, you can’t get enough for it,” she said Friday.